1. Field
The subject matter discussed herein relates generally to identity protection and management of identity information for electronic communication, and more particularly, to automatically detecting, reporting and stopping abuses of electronic communication by use of a proxy address based on a user-determined risk value.
2. Related Background
A user of an online account may communicate electronically with another party (e.g., retailer, financial institution, or website). When the user communicates via electronic email or “email”, the other party may acquire the contact information of the user of the online account, such as the email address. The other party may subsequently disclose the contact information of the user to yet another party, often without the consent or even knowledge of the user of the online account.
As a result of the above-described disclosure of user information, the user may receive unsolicited communication (e.g., spam). When the information is disclosed to other parties, the result may be that the user receives a large volume of spam. Under such circumstances, the user may not be able to stop the spam communication, or identify the party that initially disclosed the user's contact information.
For example, Alice uses her email address, alice@xyz.com, to send an email inquiry to ABC Corporation (e.g., customer@abc.com). Without Alice's knowledge or consent, ABC Corporation discloses or sells the email address of Alice to 123 Corporation, which in turn provides the email address to various other parties. Subsequently, Alice receives spam from various email addresses. However, none of the spam email addresses include the information of ABC Corporation or 123 Corporation. As a result, Alice cannot determine that ABC Corporation initially gave away her information. Moreover, it becomes difficult for Alice to manage her incoming email traffic, and separate the spam from the non-spam (e.g., legitimate) email.